Balance Seeker

                As man, woman, creator and destroyer, in the eternal search for balance, Shiva’s dance never ends.  Chris stands looking at the earthen statue, considering what the description really means and wonders who gets paid to write these sorts of things.  

Turning to his left, he looks for Rosemary but she isn’t next to him.  A moment of panic sets in.  It’s his weekend to have his daughter, now five, and this is the first trip they’ve taken to the Kentucky Cultural Arts Center.  He’d intended so many weekends before this one to begin her immersion in art, but something always seemed to come up.  That something was typically a raging headache from the previous Friday night; he never set out to drink too much, but his Russian friends always found a way to encourage his vodka consumption without him realizing how much he’d actually ingested. Last night, though, he’d put a stop to the clear liquor after three shots and two eight ounce tumblers.  Igor and Sasha made fun of him for it, but Chris kept looking at the picture of his little Rose, taken at Easter in front of the Orthodox church, and that was enough. 

            Panicked, Chris considers calling out for Rosemary, but a surly looking guard sitting in the high backed chair in the corner gives him a look that suggests a loud voice wouldn’t be tolerated.  He takes one last look at Shiva, the god (or goddess, he was never sure which) and goes in search of his little girl.  A cramp in his stomach begins to spread from his right side to sit right in the middle.  They’d stopped for lunch before coming to the museum; the grease from the breaded chicken was moving through his intestines at warp speed. 

            “Daddy,” Rosemary’s small voice calls from behind the black ribboned partition separating the works of art.  “Look what I found,” she says pointing.  He follows the trail of her small finger and sees a collection of miniature wax Gypsy fingers. 

            “Rose, darling, what have I told you about running off like that, hmm?  You know you can’t just walk away.”  His voice chastising, Rosemary is crestfallen that he hasn’t said anything about the shadowbox.

            “But I didn’t go far, and look!”  She begins rocking back and forth, a side effect of the new medication her psychiatrist put her on to deal with the anxiety of a ‘broken home.’  It was a terrible thing to watch.

            Chris looks closely at the wax figurines and sees what has Rosemary so excited.  In the left hand corner of the scene is a little girl that looks strikingly like her. 

            “It’s like it’s me but it’s not!”  Her little girl voice is shrill and happy.  Thankful that he didn’t have more vodka last night, Chris tries to match his daughter’s enthusiasm.

            “That’s right, sweet girl, it does look like you.  Let’s see who made this fine piece of art.”  Chris begins to read the placard aloud to Rosemary, skimming over the words he doesn’t think she’ll understand.  Engrossed in the language, he fails to sense movement behind them.  A group of armed police officers rush into the gallery, their steel-toe boots making heavy sounds as they run over the cedar floors. 

            “Outta the way, folks,” one of the men calls. 

            The surly volunteer in the corner looks up from his crossword and his face registers the fact that the police are not there on some sort of a drill.  Something has happened, or is in the process of happening.  Chris clutches Rosemary closely to him, as much to make sure she doesn’t run off somewhere as to try to protect her from an unknown evil.  The earthen Shiva statue, placidly on display across the corridor seems to be looking at him. 

            “Rosemary, stay right here with me, okay?  We’re just going to follow whatever the man tells us to do.”  His daughter’s wide eyes tax his, and he turns to the guard.

            “Everything okay, man?  What’s going on?”  The guard shrugs and looks at the police officer. 

            “No idea, but it’s probably best if you get her out to the front, okay?  You know how to get to the Atrium?”  The old man’s voice is thinly veiled with authority; Chris can tell that he’s clearly nervous about the police presence.

            “Rosemary, let’s go, okay?”  If Igor and Sasha were with him, instead of his darling young daughter, he would feel stronger.  Being the protector is hard work, and that’s probably why his marriage to Stacy failed.  He just couldn’t seem to get it together.  Rosemary tucks her hand in his, and he notices glitter nail polish on her little fingernails.  From somewhere deep in the museum, a deep boom shakes the silence and reverie of Saturday morning purveyors of art.  Rose’s grip inside his calloused hand is strong.

            “Daddy, what’s going on?”  Another explosion rocks the museum and the ground shakes.  “I’m scared.”

            Chris scoops Rosemary into his arms like he used to do when she was first born and tries to comfort her.  She wraps her arms and legs around him like a tandem parachute jumper.  He looks for the museum guard, but can’t find him.  Smoke begins to fill the gallery as he makes his way to the Atrium.  Pounding footsteps come up from behind him.

            “Outta the way, chump,” a man in mask says as he runs past.  He’s clutching something under his arm.  Chris assumes he’s just stolen a painting.  A second set of footsteps follows the first.  Without him understanding what’s going on, Rosemary is ripped from his arms. 

            “Look what I got,” the masked man calls out to his accomplice.  “Now we really got some leverage.”

            Chris bolts for the man and tries to pull Rosemary from him.  The man pistol-whips him in the chin and he falls to the ground.  Vision cloudy, he can barely make out Rosemary’s small frame.  He thinks of Shiva, creator and destroyer; there is no balance.